Calling Equifax Canada wasn't horrible, but they clearly want people to visit their website for answers, which is always slightly annoying. If I wanted to go online, I would have done that instead of calling them. Admittedly, I am sure that a lot of people call them for a number of reasons. People call them with questions about their credit history, about fraud, to dispute charges and many more things that likely require a lot of help.
When I first called, the voice assistant stated, "You have reached the consumer services of Equifax Canada. If you are calling about recent changes to your Equifax account, please see our website. Answers to common questions can be found in the FAQ section." They also said a few things about privacy and a couple of other sentences that I missed, but it was nearly a minute of just being talked to, which I didn't appreciate much.
They then asked me if I wanted service in English and then gave me a list of options, including, "If your identification information has been lost or stolen, press 1. If you are a victim of fraud, press 2. If you would like a copy of your own credit score, if available, press 3. For a change of address, press 4. If you have been denied credit, press 5. To obtain our mailing address, press 6. For any other questions, please press 8." I pressed one because the reason I was calling was about a potential issue with my data.
Unfortunately, my purse was stolen out of my car the night before, so I needed to freeze my credit as there was plenty of identifying information in there. I wanted to get as far ahead of the situation as possible. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't need to go through any more steps to finish my report. Instead, it allowed me to report the loss via an automated system or a representative.
Once again, I didn't want to use a robot or the internet to report this; I wanted to talk to someone about what I should do and make sure all my bases were covered. To my delight, someone answered after about 30 seconds of being on hold. I did have to listen to a few more messages about going online to get help while on hold, but in the end, I was able to speak to a very clear English speaker who helped me take care of everything necessary.